dismissed in the beginning of the following season. He went to coach Divizia B team Baia Mare in 1976 and with a team he formed mostly with local players from Maramureș County, Mateianu managed to earn a promotion in Divizia A, where the team finished twice on the 4th position. During his period spent at Baia Mare, Mateianu became known for his coaching innovations, having many tactical schemes which he gave them names like Morișca ("The Hand-Mill") in which the strikers and midfielders swap places during the game, being considered an early form of tiki-taka, Momeala mare ("The Big bait"), Momeala mică ("The Little bait"), Căciula ("The Hat"), Paralelogramul ("The Parallelogram"), Americana ("The American"), Fundul de sac ("The bottom of the bag") or Șarpele ("The Snake") are only a few examples. He also believed that the best football practice for the footballers was to play football, that is why while the rest of the clubs used to organize long cantonments before the games and training sessions in the mountains during the preparation period from the season brakes, he used to put his team to play many friendly games. Mircea Lucescu was very impressed by Mateianu's working methods, coming to study his training sessions, sometimes asking Mateianu to extend his training sessions so he can see more of his methods, also he went to his home where they would talk all night about football and draw tactical game schemes together. However, after he left Baia Mare his career went on a downfall having an unsuccessful second spell at Progresul București, two spells at Divizia B team, Dacia Unirea Brăila which he failed on both occasions to promote to the first league, a modest 12th place in the 1982–83 Divizia A season with Petrolul Ploiești and a relegation to Divizia B with Jiul Petroșani. His last spell as a coach was in 1988 at Bihor Oradea where in September he had a controversial match against Steaua București which the club officials asked him to lose, but he refused and after Bihor had a 2–1 advantage at half-time, Steaua managed to score two goals in the second half, winning the game with 3–2 but the second goal was scored in extra time, being believed that the referee prolonged the game intentionally with 6 minutes which was very uncommon in those times in order to help them score. In November 1988, Mateianu suffered a